Sunday, June 1, 2014

Three most common fears for mass affluents in the U.S. were going broke in retirement (55%), losing a job (37%), and public speaking (27%)

In late May the seven-page Spring 2014 Merrill Edge Report was released by Bank of America. It included results from telephone polls done by Braun Research in April on a sample of 1000 U.S. mass affluents.

As shown above in a bar chart, their six most common fears were not having enough money throughout retirement (55%), losing my job (37%), public speaking (27%), weight gain (25%), going to the dentist (16%), and flying in an airplane (12%). For this affluent group public speaking was not the number one fear as sometimes is claimed by speaking coaches.

Mass affluents are people with lots of investable assets (other than a primary home). They were defined as those having $50,000 to $250,000, or millennials (age 18 to 34) with annual income over $50,00 and assets of $20,000 to $50,000. U.S.A. Today referred to them more clearly as emerging affluents. (Mass affluents is just a period away from only referring to wealthy folks in the state of Massachusetts).

The polls also included additional samples, as shown above in another bar chart. For Los Angeles and south Florida the fear of public speaking was just a couple percent lower and higher than in the national sample.

That report also included questions about finances and relationships (gender differences in the dating game). I have put those results in one bar chart (see above) rather than in separate charts as in the report, and included all six questions mentioned in the text rather than just the top five. Note that about twice as many women as men replied regarding both financial stability and a stable job. Also, chemistry and appearance were rated higher by men then women.

About Me

This blog is about public speaking. The author is Richard I. Garber, ACS, a Toastmaster. From July 2008 to June 2010 he was Vice President-Education for Capitol Club Toastmasters in Boise, Idaho. Opinions expressed on this blog are those of the author alone, and are not the official positions of Toastmasters International, etc.
Richard is retired. He has over twenty years of experience as a consultant on failure analysis (figuring out why things busted or rusted) and a Ph.D. in Metallurgical Engineering & Materials Science.
His email is r_i_garber at hotmail.com

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